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I recently discovered a box of chicken tenders in my freezer, nestled underneath a container of very fuzzy cherry chocolate chunk ice cream. I used to eat a salad for lunch every day, with a couple of pieces of chicken in it. Some time ago, I switched to a daily soup regimen, but with my new find I made a salad and put a few microwaved tenders on top. I'd forgotten how much I liked it -- maybe I'll have soup one day from now on and salad the next. As I returned the chicken to the freezer I spotted a little line that read: "Best when eaten by Aug. 4, 2006."

No doubt I had just poisoned myself and had minutes left to live. I looked in the fridge to see if there were some moldy sour cream or rancid milk I could swallow to make me purge the deadly meal, but no such luck, no dairy was out of date. It suddenly came back to me why I had switched to soup. The chicken-packing company had recalled a few billion chicken parts because of a rare failure of their self-regulated inspection system. Their one part-time inspector had gone on his honeymoon or something. But I also couldn't help but think that if it tastes good now, imagine how good they must have tasted five years ago. Still, best write a note to Sue before she finds my dead, cold body on the kitchen floor.

When I was on the third page, regarding the equitable distribution of my snow-globe collection, I realized that not only was I still alive, but I felt pretty good. The longer I lived, the more I realized that if some deadly bacteria could live through five years in my freezer and four minutes in the microwave, I could have probably sold it to the Pentagon as some kind of biological weapon, and Sue's dream of becoming a rich widow would finally come true.

How clever the wording is: "Best used before," not "spoiled rotten by" or "vile and disgusting by." "Best used" doesn't even imply that the product can't be used after that date -- we just assume it. Past that date? Better throw it out and buy another one. Why take a chance? Now bottles of beer and soda have "best used by" dates on them, so you'll know they're fresh. Yeah, you don't want to show up at that tailgate party with stale beer. As if after eating four pounds of chili, nachos and chips and taking a few nips from a hip flask, you could possibly tell the difference.

The label on the soda I'm drinking right now says it contains potassium benzoate, calcium disodium EDTA and something called simply, Red 40. Will any of that really spoil over time? It also has the words "pomegranate" and "antioxidant" prominently displayed on the bottle. In small print on the back it says: "Contains no juice." I can assume, then, that it also contains no antioxidants. Of course, the soda was only half the price of a real pomegranate, but considering it has absolutely no pomegranate in it, shouldn't it have read: "one-tenth the price"? How much should a beefsteak that contains "no beef" or olive oil that contains "no olive oil" cost?

It was all giving me a headache, so I looked in the medicine cabinet for some over-the-counter relief. I noticed that all my prescriptions expired exactly one year after I got them. Really? So that medicine is perfect for 365 days, but it turns bad in the container on day 366? That's quite the trick. Does the medicine know how long it sat on the pharmacy shelf before they sold it to me? Does it know how long it was in the factory warehouse before it got to the pharmacy?

When are they going to start putting "best used by" dates on big purchases like cars and washing machines? If it works for frozen chicken, imagine how much they could make getting you to toss out the old fridge? I'm not against the "best used by" idea for some things -- athletes, politicians and teenage pop stars -- but you should use your own common sense. I have to say, my out-of-date chicken tenders, which I should have thrown out tasted, -- you guessed it -- just like chicken.

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